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Wednesday, 17 July 2013

Sepia Saturday - Warrior Women

Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity to share their family history and memories through photographs.

This week's prompt features a somewhat theatrical figure - Boadicea or Britannia? Though my first reaction was - is it a character from a Wagnerian opera? It inspired me to take the theme Warrior Women.

Here is the famous London statue ofBOADiCEA on Westminster Bridge opposite the House of Parliament. Created by Victorian sculptor Thomas Thornycroft, it was unveiled in 1902.

Boadicea was queen of the British Iceni tribe, and c.AD61 she led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire whose governor was then Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. The rebel queen is depicted as a heroic patriot, standing triumphantly in her chariot.

As regular readers of my blog know, I am always keen to promote the history of my local area - the Scottish Borders. Here is probably a little known fact - the words of "Rule BRITANNIA" were written by Borderer James Thomson(1700-1748), who was born in the village of Ednam, near Kelso, Roxburghshire. He attended Jedburgh Grammar School and studied
divinity at Edinburgh University, before making his home in London. Britannia was an ancient term for Roman Britain and came to be personified as a goddess, armed with a trident and shield and wearing a helmet. It later became as an emblem of British imperial power and unity, featured on banknotes and coins.

Thomson's words of "Rule Britannia were set to music in 1740 by Thomas Arne, and his poem "The Seasons" was used by composer Haydn as the text of his oratorio of that name.

This circular nine columned gazebo, unveiled in 1817, was dedicated to James Thomson. It stands on a mound overlooking the River Tweed at Dryburgh, near St. Boswells. in the Borders. For the opening of the temple, poet Robert Burns wrote an “Address to the Shade of Thomson”

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The Gallic equivalent of Britannia is MARIANNE,depicted below on a mural at Bastille Metro Station in Paris.﻿﻿﻿

﻿﻿﻿The Bastille Metro Station pays homage to French history, notably events of 1789. In the centre of this picture is patriot Marianne, wearing the Revolutionary tricolour cockade in her cap. The origins of Marianne are obscure, but she became a prominent national symbol in France, a personification of the new Republic, with its principles of Liberty and Reason. Statues of Marianne appear across France at civic buildings and law courts and her image features on French euro notes and postage stamps.

JEAN OF ARC, Maid of Orleons (c.1412- 1431) was born a peasant girl, but became a folk heroine of France and a saint. Claiming divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years War. She was captured, put on trial] and was burned at the stake for heresy when she was only 19 years old.

Statue in Paris of Joan of Arc

The gilded bronze statue in Paris was commissioned by the French government following the defeat of the country in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

And finally, I have included this 1960's photograph for two reasons. It is from a student production of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, "Iolanthe, where the Fairy Queen (front right) has taken on the persona of a Wagnerian woman warrior. Also I cannot helping thinking that the very short brown tunic of Strephon in the centre is very reminiscent of the tunic worn in this week's photo prompt. As a matter of interest I am the "fairy" in the emerald green outfit on the right, behind the Fairy Queen's staff.

Click HERE to see how other bloggers have taken to the stage with this week's prompt.

**Image Copyright Walter Baxter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic Licence. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

I have seen quite a few old cabinet photo portraits of girls and women dressed in costumes similar to those which you and your fellow thespians are wearing, which I now realise might well have been taken after a production of Iolanthe. Thanks, too, for the background stories to and images of Boadicea and Marianne. The tale of Jean d'Arc is, of course, very familiar.

Interesting that we both have chosen Boadicea/Boudica this week. I learnt about Boadicea at school and it's only recently that I discovered her name was Boudica, A BBC history programme by Dan Snow and his son told me that Boadicea came about from a transciption error around 500years ago. That made me get out my history books where there is confusion also. The British Museum website confirms her name as Boudica and not Buodicea. Your photo of her statue looks better than the one I used.

About Me

I have been interested in family history for years. It all began when I was allowed as a child to look through the old family photographs and memorabilia kept in a shoebox in the cupboard at my grandfather's house. That treat started me on a fascinating ancestral trail.